The Rest of the Story

by Tal Bauer

A howl broke through the brittle stillness. We jumped— But it was Lawson, not a monster rising out of the darkness. Lawson, grabbing his skates and shoving his fists into the boots, and then throwing himself at that spit of wall next to his seat, those five terrible feet where Coates had attacked Brody. Lawson slammed his skate blades into the drywall, over and over again, slicing and shredding and sledgehammering it into splinters and shards. He dropped his skates and went at the ruins with his hands, flinging broken pieces to the ground, where he stomped them to dust and smithereens. Through it all, he was bawling, half-mad with fury, half out of control with agony. Destroying that wall was all he could see, all he could do, and when it was gone, when nothing was left but the studs and open air, he collapsed to his knees and dropped his chin to his chest, weeping. Gavin crawled on barely-working hands and knees to Lawson’s side. Lawson sank into Gavin as Gavin sank into him, twin sculptures of misery.

This kind of visceral angst is so good, so emotional, it just really sinks into me when I read it.